David Christopherson

[Questions on the Order Paper, January 29th, 2007]

With respect to programs and spending administered by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) within the riding of Hamilton Centre: (a) what was the amount spent in 2006; (b) what is the projected budget for 2007; (c) how many CHMC-funded housing units for singles and families currently exist; and (d) how many CMHC-funded housing units for singles and families are planned for the remainder of 2006 and 2007?

[Human Rights, December 4th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, Sunday, December 10 is International Human Rights Day. This year the UN has adopted the theme of “Fighting Poverty: a matter of obligation, not charity”, something the government would do well to respect.

In fact, under the Conservative regime, Canadians' rights are under serious attack.

We have seen deep cuts to the Status of Women offices, including Hamilton's, which offered research and advocacy to develop women's social, political and economic equality. It was cut, even though an estimated 2.8 million Canadian women still live in poverty.

We have seen cuts to literacy programs, despite a well documented relationship between poverty and illiteracy.

We have seen a determined attempt to segregate some loving couples from others, picking and choosing who gets to be called a family.

We have seen increased deportations of immigrant parents and children attempting to escape war and famine.

Let us stop the Conservative attack on Canadians' rights and begin work on attacking poverty instead.

[Infrastructure, November 27th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt it is being done around the world, but it is also failing around the world. The British Medical Journal found that P3 hospitals were up to 60% more expensive than public hospitals. The Australian state auditor found that its P3 hospitals cost twice as much. The New Brunswick auditor general found that a P3 school cost over $700,000 more than if the government had built it alone.

The world has learned that P3s do not work. Will the government learn that lesson and stop this disastrous policy before more Canadian tax dollars are wasted?

[Infrastructure, November 27th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, last Thursday the government announced in its economic update a requirement that provinces, territories and municipalities consider P3 options. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities said, “We are concerned that this new funding requirement may create unnecessary red tape and become a barrier to participation by municipalities”.

Why is the government creating unnecessary red tape and even more barriers to addressing our urgent infrastructure deficit?

[Petitions, November 8th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition, circulated by the Canadian Auto Workers union, with literally pages of names. The petitioners call upon the government to stop the free trade agreement with Korea, which is under way. There are many petitions being circulated and presented here in the House.

I am doing this not only for the auto industry in Ontario, but for the steel industry in support of suppliers and services in Hamilton that rely on a strong auto industry. If we continue to have a flood of imports coming in without a reciprocal arrangement to sending our products there, we are going to continue to lose jobs.

This is an important petition and, hopefully, the government will pay attention, given that we are hearing from all members in all quarters of the House about this bad agreement.

Stop the agreement and support the auto sector in Ontario and in Canada.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2006, No. 2, October 25th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I would just pick up on the last point the hon. member made. I would bring to his attention that every time the government stands up and brags about money it is putting into anything that is socially progressive, that is money that came from Bill C-48, the NDP budget.

What I want to know is why the Bloc did not take the opportunity to see if we could make further amendments that would advance the very issues the member says are the key priorities for the Bloc, rather than just playing this game that as long as they are okay, they will not worry about everything else.

If we work together, we have more votes than they do. Why did the Bloc not take the opportunity to do what the NDP did, and that is amend a bad budget and bring in good things that benefit the people of Quebec and Canada?

[Citizenship and Immigration, October 17th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, one of the former Liberal government's most shameful legacies is an immigration and refugee backlog of over 700,000 applications.

Every day in my Hamilton Centre office we see the heartbreak of separated families and seniors in tears as they are torn away from their grandchildren. After waiting as long as 10 years, they ask me, “Can I become a Canadian or not? Please let me know soon”.

This year's Citizenship Week gives the Conservative government an opportunity to end the bottomless backlog and to reunite desperate families. Their election platform promised reforms to end the waiting time, but the lines still grow and the reforms have not come.

I agree with the minister's words that new Canadians make a significant social, economic and cultural contribution to the country. What I want to know is, where are the actions to go with those words?

Our current system is dividing families, crushing spirits, and leaving good people weeping in frustration. Canada can and must do better.

[Canada Labour Code, September 22nd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to join in the debate.

I thank my colleague, the hon. member for Vancouver Island North for introducing the bill. Those who know her background will know how proud she is, like myself, to be a product of the Canadian labour movement. She carries those values and important priorities with her to this place. That is why I know that she feels so good about bringing forward this legislation.

The fact there are two pieces of legislation, we can talk about a red herring. We barely lost the vote the last time by a handful of votes which were primarily Liberals. Conservatives were not really expected to be sympathetic to workers and their needs, so there is no shock there. We are very much like-minded with the Bloc on this issue in terms of believing this is important for working people. The Liberals put themselves forward as a party that supposedly cares about workers and yet they divided on this issue. There were enough Liberals opposed that it lost.

The fact that there are two bills here means that we are going to get two hours to talk about this issue and to put the matter forward. Members of the Canadian Labour Congress are here today and are watching very closely. We intend to make sure that the bill carries this time, but if it is not this time, it will be the time after that, or the time after that, or after that, or after that. This fight will not stop until this legislation is brought in and the workers of the country are protected the way they should be.

That is why the member is proud to bring the bill to the House. That is why I am proud to stand here and lend my voice and precious vote to this issue.

Let us also deal with another little bugaboo that is out there. I understand some people do not like the term “scabs”. I appreciate that. It is a vulgar word. It puts terrible images in one's mind. It is a horrible thing to call someone. But let me tell the House, a scab is a scab is a scab. When people take workers' jobs when those workers are fighting to have a decent income so they can put food on the table and take care of their families, those other people deserve to be called scabs. I will always call them scabs. We are not backing off on that.

Let us tackle the issue of whether or not this legislation would do all kinds of damage. If we listen to some we would swear the whole economic roof of the country is going to cave in.

For 30 years it has not just been the PQ in charge in Quebec. There have been Liberals. Of course, we all know that is a nice euphemistic term for all the right wingers under one umbrella. In fact, the current Liberal premier used to be a Progressive Conservative. That was back when there were progressive-type Conservatives. That is a little different. Nonetheless he is very much on the right wing of the political landscape in Canada. Does that premier say that he is going to pull this legislation or change it? No.

What about British Columbia, the other province that has this legislation? It is the same thing, Liberal. Everyone in B.C. who is not an NDPer becomes a Liberal. Did they pull that out when they did a major wrecking job, in my opinion, with major reforms to the labour bill in B.C.? Did they change this? No.

For all the bogeymen that former premier of Ontario Mike Harris used to talk about this legislation containing, in 1994, the first full year of the anti-scab legislation in Ontario, we had record levels of investment in the manufacturing sector in Ontario. One of the most highly unionized sectors in all of Ontario under anti-scab legislation, under an NDP government, and we had record capital investment in the year 1994.

If this legislation did as much harm as everyone says, it would not last another day in Quebec. It would not last another day in B.C. It would not have shown record investment in Ontario. Those are all bogeymen and red herrings meant to deny workers their rights under this bill because quite frankly, the employers do not want it. That is what this is all about.

The other big bugaboo we hear on this issue is that it makes for a fair fight. If the workers decide they are not going to work, it seems reasonable that the employer should be able to hire people to replace them; fair is fair. Nothing could be further from the truth in terms of what is fair.

The inability of workers to earn a wage is their pressure to get back to the bargaining table. The economic pressure of companies not being able to operate and make money brings them to the table. That is the equilibrium that is not right here because while the worker has no ability to earn that income, if the employer can bring in scabs to do the work, then there is no fight. It is a slaughter because economically the company keeps going.

We cannot equate a company's ability or inability to survive economically with moms or dads who have been on the picket line for five or six months. They show up on the picket line at dawn, having just had coffee with their spouse, and try to figure out how they will tell their kids there will not be any presents at Christmas.

I see some of the Conservatives snickering. I am fascinated that they find that funny.

They should go on a picket line where the people have been on strike for four months and there are scabs going in to do their jobs and let us see how many chuckles they get out of that. It is disgraceful.

There is nothing more frightening than being on the picket line after months and months, and not being able to pay bills or meet daily requirements and not know what tomorrow will bring. Then there are people going in every day, taking their jobs and guaranteeing they will still be on that picket line the next day.

Do we wonder why there is violence on the picket line? It is not radicals or union goons who create the violence. It is ordinary working people who finally snap under the pressure because they just cannot face going home another day with no answer as to how they will buy the food they need. It is that basic.

Sometimes some people in this place get a little distant from that real world. That is the real world with millions of Canadians. All they want, all that we want to ensure is that they have the decent protection of labour laws that make it a fair fight. That is all they want. They want to make it a fair fight.

We should give those workers their opportunity to have the best collective agreement that can be fairly negotiated between them and their employers. However, as long as we permit a corporation or a company to continue to operate by bringing in scabs, then we as a nation, with our laws, are imposing a huge injustice on those workers.

Another reason to do this, if we believe in it, is that we only have it in two provinces. That is a good reason to pass it nationally, so those people fighting for it in the other provinces have something to point to. If they can say that we have a national law which is good enough for the national Government of Canada, then it ought to be good enough for their province or their territory. We would be showing leadership and be leading by example.

Let me conclude by saying that this is not asking for a lot. It really is not. That is why it keeps coming back. That is why the Canadian Labour Congress puts its precious dollars into these campaigns. It is all about fairness. If we believe in economic fairness, then we want to believe that every Canadian is entitled to be protected by this legislation, not just those in the provinces of B.C. and Quebec but all Canadians. That is what this place is about, fairness for Canadians, and we have the power.

I implore a handful of Liberals, which is probably what we need right now, to change their minds and their last vote. Maybe they did it because they were government and it was party whipping or whatever. They should find any excuse. But please, I hope they search their hearts and their conscience, and realize that the precious vote they have been given can make a world of difference, a lifetime of difference, to people who otherwise do not have a voice.

[Poverty, September 22nd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I recently organized a round table meeting with some of the leaders of Hamilton's immigrant support organizations to discuss how we can better help settle new Canadians into our community.

One of the key priorities raised is the chronic high unemployment and increasing poverty among immigrant families. Fifty-two per cent of recent immigrants to Hamilton live below the poverty line, a shocking and shameful figure that belies the government's claim to support new Canadians.

This is not the first time Hamilton's poverty has been identified. Last spring the Hamilton Income Security Working Group reported to a United Nations meeting in Geneva that tens of thousands of Hamilton's children are living in poverty. That report made it clear that the responsibility for this urgent and desperate crisis falls to our governments which refuse to help with sufficient affordable housing, promised job opportunities and effective child benefit programs.

Poverty is a cancer in my community and across our country. We owe it to all Canadians current and future to work to eliminate it.

[Questions on the Order Paper, September 18th, 2006]

With regard to Natural Resources Canada's biofuels incentive program: (a) does the government provide financial incentives for testing biofuels; (b) will the government provide those incentives for tests carried out by any qualified Canadian testing facility; (c) does the government have a preferred supplier for biofuels testing and, if so, how was the decision made to use that preferred supplier; and (d) if there is a preferred supplier, does it carry out tests at the same, lower or higher price than other qualified testing facilities in Canada?